Adepeju Adebajo, managing director, WAPCO Operations of LafargeHolcim has disclosed that the multinational cement company was not spared in the fallout of deadly ebola virus that ravaged some African countries, including Nigeria last year, saying the break-out of ebola in the country abruptly forced the firm to call off longstanding, annual sporting events in 2014.

The managing director explained that LafargeHolcim had already incurred huge expenses in preparation of the annual sporting events last year, but the sudden break-out of ebola in the country, costed and prevented the firm from holding the annual sporting events, having considered importance of people’s safety and health, and in accordance with government’s directive.

Adebajo, who was represented by Enitan Oyenuga, general manager, Human Resources of the firm at the 2015 LafargeHolcim Sports Day held at Ewekoro cement plant at the weekend, said that the annual sporting events were established by the management of the company over 20 years, to boost employees’ moral and motivate the entire employees to be more productive.

She said, “Last year was peculiar, you will remember that last year, we had ebola and one of our big values in our organisation is health and safety and so, despite the fact that we had put together everything; we had concluded all the plans, we had even printed shirts by the way.

“But last minutes, when we lost confidence that we would be in position to guarantee health and safety, we decided to put it off and unfortunately, if you don’t do it at a time like this, which is typically September, then you lose the opportunity to do it later because most of the kids would have gone back to schools.”

BusinessDay reports that LafargeHolcim Sports Day is annually held for managerial staff, the entire employees and families where various sporting events; track and field events, which include football, high jump, relay, tug-of-war, dancing competition among other events are organised to boost moral and ensure sound health and safety for the staff of the cement company.